Ten Songs for Deathberry
by krystal-shi
Summary: Ten random songfic oneshots for Ichiruki. Rating may change. (I suck at summaries, so there you go)
1. Chapter 1

**Ten Songs for Deathberry**

Song#1: Romeo and Cinderella – Vocaloid

World: AU

Rated: M (for sexual references – no lemon, though, because I'm not comfortable in my skill to write lemony anything)

Summary: Ichigo and Rukia learn through the years that it isn't finding the person you love that is the greatest challenge – it's fighting to keep them, despite the world's efforts to keep you apart. Rukia, daughter of the corrupt and dangerous Kuchiki family, and Ichigo, the son of the man keeping the Kuchiki's from enforcing their own law upon Karakura.

Disclaimer: IF I owned Bleach, I would fill it with so many IchiRuki moments, which would make it lose its original awesomeness. So Tite Kubo owns it. (I sure wish that he'd include some sort of *cough* romantic IchiRuki scene *cough* in it though…)

A/N: (The title is, obviously, the song!) The English version of the song this fic was inspired by was used in the writing of this fic, and if you want to have a listen to the version that I used for inspiration, PM me your email or something. A big thank you to my friend Jin, and her friend Eugene, and their whole band for making the version that I was listening to while writing this thing. It is, admittedly, pretty long (even by my standards…har har). The scenes are not necessarily in chronological order (A LOT OF FLASHBACKS), because that just takes the drama from the whole thing, right? But hopefully, you'll get the basic gist of it. This is my first IchiRuki fic, too! I've been practicing with TT fanfictions, and after 300 IchiRuki fanfictions and a LOT of thinking and soul-searching…I have finally been able to deliver a somewhat decent IchiRuki fic! This one basically (subtly) says the reasons why IchiRuki is my eternal OTP. I will go down with that ship if I have to. I'll cling onto it like the barnacles of the Titanic. I'll hold on for as long as there is oxygen in the air. I'll –well, you get the point, right?

On a random note, I have decided that I'm going to watch Episode 342 in the hopes that (maybe) I can go through the whole episode without crying (I highly doubt it, though; the first time I watched it, I could barely go through a week before I remembered it all over again every day, which meant that I was crying almost every day…crazy, I know, but Ichigo and Rukia are so perfect for each other that it moves me to tears).

Enjoy, R&R, blah blah blah. I'll shut up now.

.

.

**_Please don't let our love turn out into a tragedy like it was for Juliet,_**

**_Take me away into your arms – it's all I ask of you._**

The rain meant a lot of things to the pair that stood under it. It filled the space that separated them, even though it signified the beginning of the events that led to this particular moment, when every drop that hit the ground echoed the sound of their breaking hearts.

**_I say goodnight to both my father and my mother,_**

**_They have to be able to dream of one another_**

**_I think it's time for all the grown-ups to go to bed._**

She lied for him, and he stole for her. She lied about her night time ventures to her parents – they couldn't know that she had a friend like him.

_"Where are you going, Rukia?"_

_"I have to deal with a few loose ends for school, father."_

_"…Very well. I'm proud of you…for finally accepting my legacy."_

He stole moments for her, picking them out of the air and handing them to her on a silver platter.

_"So why are you dragging me out here at night? You should've told me to bring a jacket, idiot, before we came all the way up here."_

_"Stop complaining, you annoying little midget. Just look up."_

_"…It's…beautiful."_

_"I never got to share it with anyone. I'm glad I get to share it with you."_

She relished each and every one.

She forgot that the rain meant death and the end. She almost forgot that _that man_ from her past died in her arms in the rain. She forgot that it was raining when she left him a second time, near-death, on a street. He made her forget.

And even though he never said anything – neither of them did, really – she made him forget that _that woman_, who was the only woman who had loved him before she came, perished in the rain in a shower of blood. He forgot that it rained when she left him to accept the fate that she resigned herself to, even if it was only because she tried to help him.

_"Thank you…you stopped the rain."_

_"That's my line, idiot. You stopped the hurricane."_

**_Enchanting caramel that carries sweet illusions,_**

**_My crossing legs that bring on sexual confusion_**

**_How farther will I let you go on a sinful night?_**

They didn't plan it the first time. It was raining then, too. They took shelter in his home. His sisters and his father were gone for the day. The storm prevented them from coming back sooner.

_"I…chi…go, we….w-we shouldn't be…"_

_"Do you really care?"_

_"…N-no…"_

_"Then I don't, either."_

Neither the Black Sun nor the White Moon minded.

**_Screams of pain to take it easy, won't you bite me gently?  
Don't you dare forget that I'm not ready quite yet_**

**_It's because of my mom that I've been acting sweetly and nice to you_**

Her mom saw him a few times, during those rare moments when they weren't arguing and he was actually doing something nice for her. Her mom implored her not to push away the only friend she had made in years.

_"Ichigo-kun is really special to you, isn't he?"_

_"He needs someone to beat some sense into him now and again."_

_"I'm sorry for our family being the way it is, Rukia. But…if you really do care about him, I think you should cherish the time you have left before we have to go again."_

She was glad she listened…even though she knew that she was going to have to end it.

But sometimes, it was hard not to critically wound their then-fragile relationship. He was a rash, arrogant man and she, a cultured yet short-tempered girl. Their first meeting had been accidental. Who knew that when he helped that girl pick herself up from the pavement that they would be pushed together, time and time again? But she helped him save his family. She allowed herself to be imprisoned by her father in her own home for a whole month because of her single act of defiance. And he visited her, in secret, talking to her through the walls.

_"Do you really have nothing better to do, you fool?!"_

_"Well, you _must_ be very bored without me."_

_"Your idiot head is so full of your ego that it's probably as big as an air balloon, so I don't see how you can possibly sneak past the guards."_

_"My friend Renji helped me out."_

_"…You better not be getting into trouble, or I'd have to kick your ass, Strawberry."_

_"The feeling's mutual, midget."_

He learned how to sneak past guards and scale impossibly tall, brick walls during that month.

**_All the things that I don't know, how they enchant me so_**

**_But isn't that normal or at least how it go?_**

**_Show me all your feelings, I'll let you in my heart_**

**_Oh, if only you knew this from the start._**

They weren't big fans of words, but the silence between them spoke volumes of the things that they knew about each other. A simple look, a small glare, a light shove…even insults and punches and kicks took the place of the words that they never had the courage to speak.

They were stubborn enough not to be the first one to say anything. It continued like that until they realised, during his month of wall-climbing and her month of talking to the wall in the bathroom, that they needed to say something, as if the words would disappear if they didn't grab a hold of them and made sure that they were said.

_"Ichigo, I –,"_

_"Rukia, I—,"_

_"—I love you, you idiot!"_

They were in sync, saying the same thing, on the same night, when she was released.

**_I feel so in love just like Cinderella_**

**_I scream my love for you while leaving you my glass shoe_**

**_I pray to God for time to come to a halt before the evil can come, leaving us both at fault _**

They were children when they first met.

It was in a sandbox, where their friendship grew. He gave her a friendship necklace, and he was given a bracelet in return. While the necklace soon became too tight for her to wear, she made sure that she still had the pendant wherever she went. And when the bracelet couldn't fit his growing wrist anymore, he made adjustments to it so that it did.

_"Make sure you don't lose this, okay? Keep it forever, or I'll beat you up!"_

_"…Okay."_

They were torn apart during their first year of friendship. A year, they thought, that seemed to last longer, each day filled with the innocent happiness of a child. Her parents found a more promising business venture, where they could use their Yakuza empire to their advantage without worrying about police officers who still had integrity. His father was one of those police officers.

_"Papa, no! I need to get to Rukia!"_

_"No, Ichigo, listen. Her parents are very bad people…"_

But he saw the pendant glinting on the base of her neck, and she saw the bracelet peeking out from under his jacket.

_"I can't believe you kept this, Strawberry."_

_"I needed you to keep me out of trouble somehow, right?" _

And it became easier, because after nine years of being apart, they had found each other again. Even if they would be pulled apart for a month a few weeks after they found each other again, there seemed to be nothing that kept them from each other for long.

**_Now, I have to escape just like Juliet did_**

**_Oh please don't call me by that name, we aren't the same_**

Things were never really easy, not at all. He was training to become a police officer. She had only come back with her parents because they wanted to strengthen their hold in Karakura. She did not approve of her parents' positions in society – her father, a hotel magnate and a big Yakuza leader, and her mother, a woman who could bring a person to their knees without needing to resort to threats (a big asset in her line of work as a politician) – but it was all she knew.

She couldn't ask him to follow her when they threatened to leave again. He was better; he had morals. She didn't.

**_It's not okay, please I just want you to stay,_**

**_Because without you here, what is there for me to do?_**

He did not want her to leave. He hated her for being his weakness. He was seven years old when she left him. He thought that he'd gotten over the loss of his best friend, his companion, the one who could read the words he wanted to say without him actually saying them, holding his thoughts open like he was just one of her books. He beat himself up for not being able to 'protect' her from those men that took her away. Nine years later, it seemed that their time apart only strengthened their bond.

_"I've missed kicking your ass."_

_"And I've missed towering over you."_

_"You never towered over me before, you abnormal giant."_

_"Yeah, but I like the feeling that it gives me."_

_"You won't be saying that when I kick you."_

Being together was easy. Their lives weren't.

A few weeks after being with her, he was threatened by her father. He didn't listen, and she had to step in. She was gone for a month, but he was determined not to let her go as easily as he did all those years ago.

_"I'm sorry you had to be there when my father's men…did that…"_

_"I'm not."_

_"You must be disgusted at me. I can understand if you don't want to look at me…"_

_"I would always want to see you. Don't you dare think differently."_

They bid their time.

He knew that he was lost without her. She was his light. His weakness, and his strength, all at the same time – he was a crippled man without her.

**_So if I cry, would you always be right here by my side?_**

They only cried together once.

_"God, I'm so sorry, Ichigo, I didn't know…I'm sorry my father…did that…to your mom…"_

_"Me too, Rukia…me, too."_

Neither let the other get down to such a level that their stubbornness just wouldn't work against the tears threatening to spill. But when it all became too much, their soft sobs and shuddering breaths were the only ones that kept them from breaking apart entirely.

**_I try so hard to look like I'm older than my age_**

He always mocked her for being a midget. She bit back by saying that his height was unusual and abnormal. He never actually expected her to dress up for him when he said that they were going on their first official date.

_"You clean up nice, Kuchiki."_

_"What, are you worried that I'll steal the spotlight from you, you egotistical jerk?"_

_"I wouldn't mind."_

Nevertheless, he was pleased when it rained and no one was at home that day.

**_I wear mascara to conceal the fact I'm in rage_**

**_I promise you I'll be a good girl from now on._**

She never wore make-up since that day. He asked her not to; why would she want to cover up her actual face with fake things? She wasn't fake and so there was no reason to hide behind insincere facades. But when she did wear make-up, he knew that something must be bothering her.

_"As long as you keep insisting that you're anything but beautiful…no sex is allowed."_

_"But –what –I don't—f-fine then! See if I care!"_

He made love to her again after a whole week of not doing so. He had abstained to drive a point home: that she didn't need those things to look beautiful, and she didn't need those things to prove her self-worth to him, because he already held her in such high value.

_"I see you stopped wearing make-up."_

_"Shut up and kiss me, idiot Strawberry."_

The lesson worked.

**_There's no one here to stop me from the things that I do_**

**_I want your love so why don't you come please me, you fool?_**

He was her servant. Not literally, but she treated him like he was, whenever she was in the mood. She was mad when he abstained from sex, but she understood his reasons, and it was one of the countless reasons why she loved him. He knew that words had as much worth as her spleen: they were there, but they had no actual purpose. They didn't talk about their feelings very much, but he knew what she thought about herself, and corrected that to a point that she was actually forced to re-think things.

_"I swear, Ichigo, if you don't take me to bed right now, you won't get the chance to do so for a year."_

She made him promise not to hold out on her like that again, and he made her promise not to think of herself as the worthless person she had once thought she was.

**_How farther will we be able to cross the line?_**

They had been close to being found out once at school. She told him to control himself, but it seemed that the period of time they dubbed as 'No Sex Week' took his toll on him as well.

_"I…chi…go…s-stop…"_

_"Relax, no one's around."_

_"Wait…did you hear that?"_

Suffice to say, Keigo had been beaten within an inch of his life to…encourage him…to be silent about the whole ordeal. Rukia instigated another No Sex Week, and even though it was painful to limit themselves, it taught them the important lesson of refraining from engaging in sexual activity on Rukia's desk after school.

**_Now I know that this is true, that I'm in love with you_**

**_The pain is killing me as I am screaming my pleas._**

**_I think you know by now that my father doesn't seem to like you much._**

Byakuya Kuchiki was well-known for his scathing temper. They both knew what the cold, calculating man was capable of. He had ordered the hit on Ichigo's mother because of his father's so-called 'insubordination'. In fact, Ichigo's father was the only one 'standing in the way' of whatever Byakuya – who allowed himself to be called Senbonzakura – attempted to achieve.

When news of their renewed friendship reached his ears, he knew he had to move to get rid of the boy quickly…and subtly. The attack on the boy was a warning that neither of them paid any heed.

Rukia would have understood it if Ichigo never wanted to see her again, as much as it pained her. But it seemed to be that he was the only one in the entire world who didn't look at her as a Kuchiki, or as the daughter of a Mayor, or the daughter of Senbonzakura; he looked at her as the individual that he knew she was. He baffled her; he ruffled her feathers and pushed her buttons and rubbed her fur the wrong way. How was it that they fell so hopelessly and unceremoniously into each other's arms, time and time again?

**_I can see your hands reach out as I begin to pout_**

**_And now I see it clear, you really love me my dear_**

She told him that she didn't have long until they left again. He reached for her hand and smiled in that sad way, and looked at her in the way that he would never look at anyone else.

And finally, he used those words again. He never stopped telling her. He told her that she shouldn't feel obliged to say it back, but she didn't feel like that at all. She just wanted to tell him, and through saying those things, she dreamt that it would be enough to keep their hearts tied together. It just so happened that whenever she wanted to tell him, he merely beat her to it.

**_Take me far away so we can make love Romeo,_**

**_Oh won't you fulfil my fantasies?_**

In her eyes, he wasn't the scowling, scary 'delinquent' who terrorised the school. He wasn't the one who got into fights – that he didn't even start, he thought bitterly – because of his hair or his myth-based reputation. He wasn't the one who everyone thought had a dark future ahead of him, despite his grades and his aspirations to actually help people.

_"Why aren't you scared of me, Rukia?"_

_"Why should I be?"_

_"Well…I'm taller than y – Ow, okay, geez, I was just trying to make a point! Anyway, people say that I scare them."_

_"You're not trying to, are you?"_

_"…No…?"_

_"Then I don't see the reason why they should be afraid of you! I think you're just a big softie. Like this ice cream...I don't need to pay you back for this, do I?"_

_"No, but I wouldn't mind if you did. I can always use the extra money…"_

_"To what, buy a new face? You know I won't let you. Seeing you look different would be an insult to the amount of time I've spent trying not to gag when I look at you."_

_"…Thanks."_

_"No problem."_

That was what he was to her: ice cream. Annoyingly enough, it didn't bother him.

Because that day, he saw her kiss that ice cream more times than she kissed him. He wouldn't mind being touched by her lips that many times.

**_So I'll just run away like Cinderella_**

**_I'll scream my love for you while leaving you my glass shoe_**

**_I pray to God that you'll come searching for me,_**

**_Save me from all my fears while I run away and flee._**

They had an argument, once. They said the wrong things.

Words, when wielded by the two of them, were explosive. Neither of them found much use for them, but when they used words to actually fight, words became deadly. While their words rarely had any use but to allow them to push each other's buttons, those could quickly turn ugly in the wrong place and the wrong time.

_"Why are you even here, Ichigo?! Don't you hate me?! My father killed your mother! Her blood is on his hands, and…and he passed that to me!"_

_"Why can't you admit that it was never your fault? You had nothing to do with that, damn it!"_

_"I did! If…If I wasn't friends with you…"_

_"Don't you dare say that you regret meeting me, Rukia Kuchiki. Don't you dare use those words."_

It was the silence that brought them together. Few words needed to be said to repair the damage that a lot of words had caused.

_"I'm sorry."_

_"…I don't forgive you."_

_"W-what? Why?!"_

_"Because I was never mad at the person I held closest to my heart."_

**_Well, I'm sure that Cinderella was lying herself_**

**_It's not an accident, she left her shoe on purpose_**

When they first kissed, she tried denying that it was nothing more than an accident.

He had seen her looking at the ice skating rink while he was walking her home. She probably didn't even realise that she was looking at it with that longing look in her eyes, and he understood; she didn't exactly have a normal childhood.

_"What are you looking at?"_

_"I was just thinking…about how nice it is to be normal."_

The next day, he surprised her by dragging her all the way there after school. She tried telling him that she didn't know how to, and that she didn't ask for him to take her there anyway, but he shrugged it off and practically dragged her in the middle of it all.

She stumbled and slipped, but he caught her, as he always seemed to have the habit of doing.

_"Ichigo, wait! Don't go too fast!"_

_"Don't worry, I'll catch you."_

They shared that moment when they knew that it was simply the right time. They leaned in at the exact same time, like they knew what the other wanted.

But their friends had been there.

That day wasn't the day that they had their first kiss.

But there were words that should have been penned down as hints of their true feelings. He wanted her to gain a feeling of normalcy from all the fighting and imminent death threats. She wanted him to catch her – not that she would ever admit it – because his arms were the only place where she felt safe and…normal.

**_I understand that she and I are the same_**

**_Oh I just want to be loved, so no more playing games_**

**_So just look for me, and then you'll soon find what you seek._**

He was the type of sadness-ridden boy who grew up to be a passionate man. Whatever it was that he did, he always put his all into it. The deepest, darkest depths of the unknown universe were his limits. And much to her annoyance, he never seemed to stop growing into a better man. She envied him for that.

At the same time, they would exchange insults and bicker like it was the very air that kept them alive.

In the middle of all the violence and outward roughness, there was the soft interior of their beating hearts…that only the two of them saw through their petty arguments. It was the thing that made them so unique and special, and everyone who saw their bond made sure to tease them about how neither of them saw what they already held in their hands.

**_Oh won't you just take a look and see what I have hidden in the corners of my heart?_**

It was his birthday when it finally happened.

It was an accident, a one-in-seven chance that the bottle would point at her. The other five people in the room grinned at them with the smiles that they had been directing their way ever since they had met. It was like they _rigged_ the bottle. But that was impossible, and so, they all only summed it up to Fate.

_"N-no way…!"_

_"L-let's just get it over with."_

And in a closet, no matter how cliché it was, they shared their first kiss.

**_Can't you see that it's filled with all of my dirty thoughts and all my needs and my wants?_**

Sometimes she had to beg.

Sometimes, he had to.

Either way…both found a way to infuriate the other to the point where all words were plugged by heated kisses and scathing touches.

**_I want you to fill me up until I burst out forth and give in to my desires._**

She wanted him so much at times that she began to wonder how she could have denied him before.

_"Ichigo, s-stop being…"_

Then he opened his mouth and ruined the mood.

_"Che. No way! When you blush and you make that face… it looks funny on you."_

But sex wasn't the only thing that she wanted. She wanted his strength. She wanted to be as strong as he was. Despite knowing how selfish she was being, she wanted to be worthy to stand beside him when the time came, and support him when he was simply weighed down by the world. She wanted to be able to lend him the strength that he needed, whenever he needed it.

And he wanted her vulnerability. He envied her for being able to trust. He was jealous of the way she wanted him, but in a way…he knew that she was his greatest vulnerability, and that scared him, too.

**_I'm drawn into ecstasy, oh how I feel so free, please tell me what it could be._**

He told her, once, that he would love her even without the sex. That he was drunk on her very presence…and she was his greatest addiction. She hit him and told him to stop talking like a crazy man.

_"I need you, Rukia…"_

_"Idiot! You don't need me; you're perfectly capable of standing up on your own! Or had I chosen a weak man who is crazy enough to disbelieve the fact that everyone knows that he's strong?"_

He knew that that was her way of saying that she felt the same.

**_If I lose you I wouldn't know what to do._**

Her father caught them a few nights ago. There was nothing incriminating about the situation at all: they were simply having a nice dinner to celebrate their first anniversary as a couple. He had finally taken her to a nice restaurant, even though such romantic notions were lost on them both. He figured that it was only symbolic, and for once, they should try and act as a normal couple, despite their agreement that society's definition of normal was overrated.

_"…Anyway, Rukia…I have an announcement."_

_"Are you pregnant? Have you finally accepted your true calling and got a sex change? Because you know I don't roll that way…not that I'm against those people who do, but…I just don't do that thing!"_

_"Har har. Very funny. But…that's not it. Promise you won't be mad."_

_"Ichigo…?"_

_"Promise."_

_"Fine. I promise. But you know I can't really be mad at you –,"_

_"I'm going to start training as a cadet next week."_

_"You…wait…w-what?"_

_"You promised!"_

_"I'm not mad! I'm just…shocked….So you're going to be a police officer, huh?"_

_"Wait…you're not mad? You don't think it's silly?"_

_"You idiot! If this is your dream, then I'll support you! Why would I think your dreams to be silly if I know that you can do it? I know you can do it, Ichigo! If you start doubting yourself…that's when I'll be mad at you. You don't give up. That's the man I know that you are."_

_"What about your…family…?"_

_"It doesn't matter."_

_"But –,"_

_"Didn't I say that _it doesn't matter_?! I love you, you fool."_

_"But you love your family, too! I can't…I can't ask you to choose."_

_"We'll find a way."_

_"…Yeah…"_

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. It was something that they shared. They would cross that bridge when they got there, they thought. But the bridge was going to be crossed far too soon.

But her father had planted a spy to follow her, one of his goons. He reported back to Byakuya, and the night that she came back from her date, the smile disappeared from her face.

Her bags had been packed for her.

**_My happiness seems to be stored in a box_**

**_I need to find a key so I can open the lock._**

Then, it began to rain. She told him, and he reacted violently, as she predicted he would, making baseless threats about standing up to her father. He told her that he would save her again. But she knew that there was nothing to save her from, if it took Ichigo's life. He had even wanted them to run away. They knew that they had enough skills and education between them to survive and remain hidden. She wanted an answer to all their problems, just as much as he did, but their answers were elusive, locked in some sort of unbreakable safe.

_"I _know_ we can. I trust in us. But I can't risk it…"_

_"What are you saying?! Why can't you?!"_

_"Because it would mean losing you! I can't…I can't lose you forever…"_

_"You won't! I won't put you through that."_

_"Maybe not on your own, Ichigo, but this is bigger than any of us. This is bigger than you. I can't…hurt you like that."_

_"But you'll be hurt, too. I said that I'd protect you, Rukia. _Please_, let me try. Don't go."_

_"Don't! Don't…come after me! If you do…I'm never going to forgive you."_

Because she knew that if he did whatever reckless, senseless, violent thing he wanted to do, it would mean that she would never get to forgive him as much as she wanted to…because he'd end up as just another victim of her father's ire. He would be in the ground, and she would never get to forgive him. She would never hear his voice again, or see his amber eyes, or run her fingers through his orange hair, or trace each beautiful feature on his face with her lips.

**_I'm scared in pain, but I won't cry out in vain_**

**_The thought of you hating me, I know it couldn't be. _**

He was scared of losing her. He knew that it was going to happen, sooner or later; it seemed that Byakuya was an impatient man and wanted it to happen much, much sooner.

He held onto her. He knew that she would forgive him, no matter what she said, but he had to respect what she wanted. He didn't understand why she would risk their love for his safety; hadn't he proved to her that he was capable of taking care of them both? But it was their passion that led to this. It was their passion for life and for love that threatened to tear them apart. Yet…their lives were so intertwined with each other that he doubted if he could move on.

_"I won't hate you if you continue to live your life without me, Ichigo. In fact, I expect you to."_

_"…I'll live it, Rukia. But you have to know that I'm doing it for you. And you have to promise me the same."_

_"…Of course I will. I'll see you again soon, won't I?"_

And he smiled, because he knew that it was the truth. No matter what they did, no matter how despicable they became, they would always find each other.

It was this faith that proved as the proof of their love.

That night, she went home with him. Both made sure that they would make love to each other fiercer and more passionate than they had before. It was through their actions that they knew.

They simply knew.

**_Well my mom and my daddy don't care about me,_**

**_They aren't different yet, they are the same as can be_**

She once saw her parents in their joint office as a child. They were both working hard, taking calls, signing papers. But she didn't miss the small glances they gave each other, as if they thought that if they didn't do that, the person most precious to them would disappear. She wanted that same love with someone as she remembered it growing up; she wanted someone to look at her that way. She wanted someone to always give her the time of day her parents never gave her.

She wanted someone to always look up, once in a while, and see her looking back.

She tried telling her parents that if they were together, why can't she and Ichigo be? She knew the answer.

They both gave her the exact same answer. They had their own versions of it, of course, but they were the same. Just as she and Ichigo were the same, no matter how opposing they seemed to be.

On her last night, she took her bags and left.

**_I'll stop my lies and I'll be true to myself,_**

**_I'll just stick to the facts; I'll drop my golden axe._**

He found her, soaked, after walking in the rain. He was about to tell her off, but the smile on her face was the first thing he noticed. It was the smile that promised _their_ future. The second thing he noticed was the bags.

_"Rukia…?"_

_"I want to be with you, Ichigo."_

_"…That's all I needed to hear."_

_"So…?"_

_"Change your clothes, Rukia. We're leaving."_

**_So if I keep lying like Cinderella,_**

**_I know I'll meet the fate that she alone had to face_**

**_I'm really scared, and have no clue what to do_**

**_But I hope I don't end up just like her too_**

**_So before that happens won't you come and rescue me?_**

Two years later, they got married.

_"No ceremony? Are you sure?"_

_"Fool! You already spent enough money on the ring. And…you know that I don't mind…"_

_"One day, Rukia. One day, I'll give you a proper wedding. I promise."_

_"…Okay."_

Five years after that, Rukia managed to end up with a small girl in her arms, reading to her at night. Ichigo had become a paramedic, and wouldn't be back for a few hours. She smiled as her daughter yawned after the end of Cinderella's fairytale.

_"Mommy?"_

_"Yeah?"_

_"Why did Cinderella leave a shoe behind? Won't the other shoe be lonely?"_

_"She left it behind…because she knew the prince would give it back. They loved each other, remember?"_

_"Oh, yeah…just like you and daddy love each other?"_

_"Just like that."_

_"So are you Cinderella?!"_

_"Ha ha, shh…it's a secret."_

_"Does that make me a princess then?"_

_"You're _our_ princess, honey. Now go to sleep."_

She tucked her daughter in bed and gave her a kiss before going to prepare her tea. She wondered, for a moment, what would have happened if she hadn't decided to finally take her life into her own hands. Not that it had been her life, even then; it was Ichigo's, too. She wondered where she would be right at that moment, if she would be pointing a gun at a filthy subordinate rather than drinking tea waiting for her husband to come home. She wondered if she would have spent those past seven years lying to everyone – including herself – about how she was okay and moving on.

If she hadn't ran away and decided to truly intertwine her fate with Ichigo's, would she be as happy as she was now? Probably not, she thought. Ichigo probably had a shot at happiness anyway, and she thought herself as selfish sometimes from taking him away from his family. When they were ready, they might go back, when they felt safe enough.

But he risked that chance to save her, even though he knew that she would just tell him off for saving her, no matter how much they both knew she needed it.

And she risked everything to accept his heroic act, because she knew that he was too stubborn to listen to her anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Ten Songs for Deathberry**

Song#2: Caffeine – Yoseob (B2ST)

World: AU

Rating: T (language, mild sexual references…and I sound like that TV rating that you hear before you watch a show, so I'm shutting up now.)

Summary: A cliché coffee shop romance, where two people bond over coffee…and I suck at summaries. But it's a romantic story (obviously) with my OTP, so…

Disclaimer: refer to previous chapter

A/N: This is going to be in a different format than the previous songfic, but whatever. I do whatever I want. Ha ha ha. My sister has also forced me to listen to Kpop for a week, so now I'm…desensitized to it. And I think it's not normal to link every single romantic song to something IchiRuki, right? Wow. I would ask for help to get rid of this obsession, but why would I? Besides, I've been watching Bleach 342 a lot…and just when I thought I wouldn't cry about it again…*sigh* ANYWAY, I'll stop freaking y'all out. If anyone wants to suggest a song, I'll see if I can do something about it (sorry to those who would request something and find that their song wasn't included; I'm limiting the songfics to 10 right now, but I'm still going to try and make one-shots!). So, reviews and constructive criticism is widely appreciated, and comments feed my life force. They keep my fingers typing.

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The first time they met, he pushed his way to the front of the line. She had watched from the sidelines, wondering why such a brash man would be in such a hurry. He had been gesturing wildly, but unlike the rest who cast him a passing glance and knew better than to stare, her gaze lingered on him just a little longer. His hair was eye-catching, of course, and this was probably what the others noticed. Maybe it was because his delinquent-coloured hair contradicted the suit that he wore. But she didn't notice that; she only noticed his urgency, and the annoying way some kind of weird passionate irritation flared in his warm, chocolate eyes. It was his expression that annoyed her.

As if someone had tapped his shoulder, he turned his head as soon as he grabbed the coffee from the counter from a frightened barista.

Their eyes met.

Call it fate, or a simple gut feeling. The world didn't disappear around them – that would have been too much of a blessing – but suddenly, they became acutely aware of each other.

He walked towards her, scowling, like he _dared_ her to look away in intimidation or fear. She stood her ground and stupidly refused, meeting his eyes.

"What are you staring at?" he asked, unceremoniously landing his ass on the seat in front of her. A vein throbbed on her forehead. For a guy who looked…intriguing…he was undeniably rude.

"Nothing," she answered as calmly as she could, turning back to her coffee and the iPad in her hands.

He huffed. "Weirdo."

"That's like the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?" she asked, raising an eyebrow at him, lazily flicking through her million emails that morning. She already felt a headache coming on, and to counter it, she took a sip of her latte. "Why are you still here?"

She heard him stand up and did nothing to stop him. _Good riddance_, she thought.

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It wasn't a week later until they met again.

"You again!" he exclaimed as he situated himself onto the chair opposite from her. "Do you always work so early in the morning?"

"What do you care?" she asked, finally settling down the iPad to give him a scathing glare. What was the point? He wasn't going to listen to her anyway. She'd already had more stress on shoulders than she could deal with, so she might as well tell him to fuck off. She swore her clients would rather have her dead than have her defend them, by the way they constantly asked about the progress of their cases. Did they not understand that she already had ten different murder cases on her hands? She wasn't incapable of dealing with all of them, of course; she would have been done faster if they all just shut up and let her work.

"I've seen you before," he answered with a smirk that only managed to get under her skin. "You were on TV, defending those guys."

"So?"

"That was pretty good of you, proving them to be innocent."

"It's my job. Don't tell me you're going to kill me for letting them have their innocence back. Are you another one of Aizen's thugs, come to intimidate me?"

He frowned, as if trying to figure her out. "You're paranoid."

She shrugged, and began to wonder why he wouldn't just go away. "Why are you here then?"

"I wanted to talk to you," came the relaxed reply from the man slouching on the chair before her. Oh, how easy it would be to just leave…but she couldn't. She didn't know why. Maybe it was because she wanted to just reach forward and strangle him.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Why?"

"Okay, okay, it was a dare," he admitted, placing his coffee on the table and holding his bare hands up in the air. "My friends told me to talk to you...in exchange for two weeks' worth of coffee."

"So I'm only worth two weeks of coffee?" she scoffed, now offended. He was probably trying to flirt with her. She frowned; of course it wouldn't work. "I'm glad to see you think of me so highly."

"I don't," he answered, "but I don't think of you as someone so low, either. I can't judge now, can I? I don't even know you."

"You said you saw me on TV."

"That's true," he admitted, taking another sip before continuing. "But I don't…_know_ you, you know?" He smiled – or at least, what she thought was a smile. He looked constipated, with the way the frown still had its traces on his face and the way the corners of his lips were turned up only slightly. She suppressed a laugh; she didn't even know if he was trying to make a silly face or not.

He got up, the remnants of the 'smile' disappearing altogether to be replaced with a relaxed expression. "I'll see you here tomorrow, lawyer."

"It's not lawyer. It's Kuchiki Rukia."

He smiled, properly this time, seeming genuinely amused. "Dr. Kurosaki Ichigo. You're still going to be here tomorrow, right?"

She shrugged, making it seem like she didn't care that he was obviously very smart or that she had ignored the ID on his chest before he introduced himself but finding that she was not capable of fully suppressing a small smile of her own. He gave that smile again, and finally, she laughed as he exited the coffee shop, the bell tinkling to signify his departure.

She wanted to see his real smile again.

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There was something different about her that set her apart from everyone else.

He noticed, on the first day that he saw her that she was the only one not staring at his hair or his suit. She probably didn't even notice the ID clipped on his jacket that allowed everyone to see that he was a true blue doctor. No, she looked at his _eyes_. He admired her courage, and at the same time, wondered if she was somehow a little demented. Normally, people would flinch at even the smallest look from him. But there she had been, not looking at anywhere but his eyes. He didn't know what was so fascinating about them; they looked normal, albeit a lighter shade of brown than most. It was like _she_ didn't know that her big, doe-like eyes didn't swim with so much promise of brighter possibilities in their indigo depths.

It took him a week to get the courage to go back, and just as his friends predicted, she was in that same spot, drinking the same coffee. The only thing that seemed different about her were her clothes, and even then, her skirt and her suit were pressed and clean, not a single fleck of dirt or dust daring to even come near for fear of being eradicated. He had told her that he saw her on TV, which was partly true, except that he would have missed the coverage were it not for his fellow doctors dragging him in front of it and asking him if that was the girl that he met, the petite woman that plagued his thoughts.

Then, as the weeks progressed to months, he found that no matter how annoying it was being around her, she still held that quality. She was so full of life, and she didn't even seem to know it, because she killed that vibrant attitude every time she looked down on her iPad and started working. He annoyed her and called her a midget, despite it getting him a few kicks and punches, because her annoyance brought that expression back on her face. Their insults were baseless, but those built the foundations of their growing friendship. They said more than actual, rational words would.

"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into!" _I don't want to let you in, because you'll only be hurt. I want to protect you._

"Are you an idiot? What kind of friend would I be if I left you alone, huh?!" _I'll stay by your side, no matter what you say._

"Heh…don't butt in, midget." _Thank you. I couldn't ask for more._

"It's part of the job description." _You're more than welcome._

So many things happened over those few weeks that it seemed like they've known each other for much longer. She waited for him to tell her about his mother. He waited for her to tell him about that man that she held so dear. They kept the smiles and the laughs and the conversations all to themselves, as if talking about those moments would make them go away.

It was for fear of losing each other…and this fear made them clutch each other tighter.

Their antagonised interactions became easier as their unspoken fears worsened. They told each other their insecurities and worries, and when words weren't enough, they exchanged coffees as a way of saying: "let me carry your burden for you". There was nothing awkward about it…at least she didn't seem to feel awkward about it. He was still anxious and embarrassed at the idea of indirectly kissing her.

On the plus side, he began to have an idea what her lips would taste like.

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It took another month before he gained the guts to ask her out. He already knew that she was a very busy woman, and honestly, so was he. But fate had actually dealt them a good hand when it allowed their schedules to…'magically' clear for the whole day they were together.

He learned even more about her, when he thought that he already knew all there was to know: she had never been to a carnival, let alone took a ride on a Ferris wheel. She had never been anywhere with any friends, because she had been home-schooled all the way to half of her high school years, and even then, she never really had any 'permanent' friends, even in college. She constantly tried to prove that growing up in a very business-oriented, politically-influential family didn't mean jack shit in her line of work, but people constantly doubted her, which pushed her to work even more.

He admired her – every single part of her – and found it to be so, so easy to be with her.

They kissed later, during an argument about cotton candy.

She tasted differently from what he expected: not like the double-cream mocha latte she got every morning without fail, but much like the strawberry-flavoured cotton candy that he bought her. Even then…she had her own way of surprising him. He didn't mind; if she didn't do that, then he had enough of a reason to worry about her. He was glad that she didn't slap him. He pulled away then and smiled. She had a way of doing the unexpected at the most precious moments.

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She didn't know the exact reason why she ended up in his arms most evenings and woke up to the smell of breakfast most mornings. There were many other reasons, and even more within those reasons, that she didn't know _how_ she came to love him.

He annoyed her. He bothered her to no end. She found more satisfaction in hitting him than…

Her mind stuttered at the thought. Than _what_?

She liked talking to him. She liked the kisses that he gave – which ranged from caring to passionate and all the things in between. She definitely liked the way he was in bed. She liked his eyes and his hair and…

Everything.

"Yo," he greeted, standing in the doorway, breakfast in hand. She smiled; he always cooked for her, even though he knew perfectly well that she could prepare her own breakfast. "Hungry?"

She chuckled, and did not miss the small blush that graced his features.

"You know," he said with a smirk, "for a small woman, you sure do eat a lot. I'm not even sure why you're not fat yet –,"

And that's when she hit him.

Way to ruin the moment, Ichigo.

But they both knew that this type of attachment was going to get harder as their lives became busier, but that to stay together, they had to be equally committed. Not that they weren't already. They were merely waiting for what their friends said was the inevitable…and in turn, they wanted to be strong enough to fight against that, and to be strong enough to protect each other's hearts.

**A/N**: Hee hee…this one is much shorter than the last one, isn't it? (I think it's about half the size of Romeo and Cinderella, but that's only because the previous one was an idea that I had months ago while listening to the song…) I honestly did not know where this one-shot was going. I was going to write more, but I didn't find the right moment to write the stuff that I wanted to write. And I don't know why I chose the song 'Caffeine'…but whatever. Any requests? (Now I feel like a DJ…)


	3. Chapter 3

**Ten Songs for Deathberry**

Song#3: chAngE – Fumiko Orikasa (YES! THE LADY WHO VOICES RUKIA KUCHIKI IN THE JAPANESE DUB! I APPLAUDE THOSE WHO RECOGNISED HER!)

World: BLEACH

Rated: T

Summary: Set after the Fullbring Arc – they have done their time apart, and now they make up for it by…sparring? Of course, it _is_ Ichigo and Rukia we're talking about here…

Disclaimer: IF I owned Bleach, I would fill it with so many IchiRuki moments, which would make it lose its original awesomeness. So Tite Kubo owns it. (I sure wish that he'd include some sort of *cough* romantic IchiRuki scene *cough* in it though…)

A/N: FINE, yes, I know the story plot is overdone, but can you really blame me after I've watched EPISODE 342 ten times?! I've brought this upon myself, I know…but I just couldn't resist. I have also finished catching up to the latest Bleach episode (and, yeah, I skipped a few, especially the fillers except for the Zanpakutou Lost Tales arc, but…yeah…I'll do that…soon…). But anyway, I've been itching to write _something_, especially after the thousand years' worth of grief episode 342 has given me. I need to let out some of my IchiRuki frustrations, and what better way to do that…but write…right? (Next song will be in English. I hope.)

A/N (2): Haha. Yay. This is a lot shorter than the other two, but I do hope that it isn't any worse. ^^, There are also references to the Bleach light novel, "Letters from the other side". Enjoy.

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White clashes against black and silver. The sounds of the blades meeting in passionate vigour rings throughout the desert-like landscape underneath Urahara Shoten. The wielders grin at each other before parting, only to let their blades meet again.

"You've" –huff—"gotten pretty good."

"What did you" –huff—"expect? That I –argh!—sit around and do nothing?"

"Of course not." The tone of the orange-haired boy is dripping with sarcasm, and an eye roll naturally came after the words were spoken. He brings his cleaver-like sword up to meet the attack of the equally-winded shinigami sparring with him.

His voice is deeper than she remembers, and it hits her how much he has changed; physically, at least. He's more mature than she expects him to be, too, but she's not going to say that out loud. She still can't believe he _cried_, after all. She doesn't shun him for it – even the strongest heroes cry. But she still can't come to terms with how heart-breaking it was to see him like that.

And now here he is, sparring with her two days after the whole event. She's expected back at Soul Society immediately, but her brother allowed her to stay for a while. She doesn't know why.

Her attacks become fiercer. She knows that he's going easy on her, and it is insulting…like he doesn't want her to get hurt for the sake of it. She wants to know how much he's grown. She wants to know why things are the way they are now…with him. She knows that he notices how much she's changed, too, and maybe that's for the best.

Maybe that's the only thing she can catch up with him on. Two years, and he has already gotten himself in trouble. And he's used that to make himself stronger.

She almost scoffs at his infuriating hero complex, but she doesn't (because she understands) and she can't anyway, since she's still trying to get some air into her lungs. They're standing a few feet apart now, both slick with sweat.

How long have they been here? Minutes? Hours?

He senses her tiredness, the way her arms and hands slacken, the way she's practically shaking from the effort of standing up. He lowers Zangetsu, but she scowls at him.

"Why are you lowering your sword?" she asks, shifting her weight from one foot to another as he saunters closer. She's fully aware that her hands are shivering, but it's not because of the temperature. It's not because of fatigue (or, maybe it is). Her heart seems to want to beat out of her chest at the rate it's going. Her nerve endings feel more alive the closer he comes.

She doesn't know how similar he feels.

"I think we've been at this enough, midget," he says with a shrug before placing his zanpakutou on his back. The words are there, unsaid as always, but there. He knows that she's not just sparring for the sake of it. She has some deeper reason, something she's keeping from him, behind those wide, violet orbs. He touches her left arm and guides it downwards. He's expecting her to shout at him or physically abuse him like she always does, but she doesn't. She's changed in his eyes, too. "There's something bothering you, isn't there?"

She sighs as she sheathes her zanpakutou, and proceeds to flop down on the ground in a manner that would have given the Kuchiki Elders a heart failure. Ichigo follows suit, sitting beside her. "It's nothing." She looks at him, up close this time. "I'm just disappointed that I won't get to stay longer."

He smirks at her. "Afraid you'll miss me?"

She lets out a chuckle. "I've always wondered how your head hasn't been able to explode yet…it seems to be growing bigger, ne?" She lets out a breath. "I just thought that they'd give me more time here, that's all." _I missed you. I missed everyone_.

"Don't tell me you're going to be a freeloader again!" _Why don't you stay at home? _Our_ home?_

"I miss Yuzu-chan's cooking…" she says wistfully, throwing her head back. _I miss living with you._

"Say, Rukia…" he starts. He feels the insane need to twiddle his thumbs, or play with her hair, or some other un-Ichigo-like behaviour, but he keeps it to himself. His statement earns him a glance from Rukia, and he holds onto it with his own gaze, not wanting to let go. "Did you miss me?"

"Why would I?" she answers almost automatically. She's smirking at him, and he feels that warmth again, that familiar comfort whenever she's around. It's been so long, and they both know it. "Who would miss your scary face? Or your weird hair? Or your annoying attitude?" _I do. I did. I…don't know…_

He inches closer, and he half wonders if she'll turn away, but she only stays there, blushing. "Pfft. And who would miss _you_? You're such an annoying, loud, obnoxious midget who –,"

"—that better end in a compliment, Ichigo." The half-assed threat makes them both smile bigger.

She's tempted to pull away. _Wrong_, her mind screams. But her heart doesn't say anything and just thuds harder against her chest, and she ignores what her mind is saying. Maybe they both just missed each other so much that being in close proximity of one another is something that's much like a drug. Maybe…it's their time apart that made them realise what they _really_ missed. The bickering. The arguing. The holier-than-thou attitudes and the arrogant smirks.

Those hadn't changed, but their feelings…

"Just shut up," he whispers. They're only a hair's breadth apart.

He can smell her – like strawberries, he thinks, and wonders why that is.

She is driven crazy by his heady scent – like spring. It makes her feel like she's seeing the sun after the rain.

So…close…

"Kurosaki-san!"

They jump a mile apart, blushing furiously, as Urahara walks towards them, his face half-hidden by the fan in front of it. Ichigo scowls at the man.

He had been so damn close.

"Oh, have I been interrupting something?" Urahara asks good-naturedly, despite knowing what it is he interrupted. The sly shopkeeper wonders if the fan is enough to hide the grin on his face. Ichigo and Rukia both open their mouths – to probably threaten him to never speak of this moment again, or to deny anything ever happened, he wasn't sure – but he cuts them off smoothly by saying: "Byakuya-san is here to pick you up, Kuchiki-san!"

She frowns as she stands up. She doesn't _need_ a chauffeur.

And Ichigo follows her as they all head outside, fuming at the thought that Byakuya interrupted them. But it wasn't like he didn't have any other chances in the future, right?

_Oh well_, he thinks. _It's not like I won't ever get that kiss_.

**A/N: **As always, reviews and comments are appreciated, as well as any criticisms (I don't mind). xD


	4. Chapter 4

**Ten Songs for Deathberry**

Song#4: One More Night – Maroon 5

World: BLEACH

Rated: M (full of lemony goodness)

Summary: (based on Touya's doujinshi, "Let's exchange vows with words known to no one but us", on pixv) Rukia is leaving again. Ichigo knows that something is wrong…and he wants to quell her inner turmoil by showing her how much he's going to miss her this time.

Disclaimer: IF I owned Bleach, I would fill it with so many IchiRuki moments, which would make it lose its original awesomeness. So Tite Kubo owns it. (I sure wish that he'd include some sort of *cough* romantic IchiRuki scene *cough* in it though…) I also do not own the book, Looking for Alaska (by John Green).

A/N: I was tumbling on Tumblr, and I stumbled upon this blog called A Shrine of Glades and guess what? My IchiRuki doujin dreams, they come true! My favourite artist now is probably Rui. But anyway. Yes. This is a very lemony chapter. So if you don't approve, fine, don't read. Credit for the plot, as well as the dialogue, does NOT go to me, but the way it is written does. (This is my cure for writer's block, haha, whatever) ALSO, this is my second lemony fic, so I apologise if it's not, er, up to par (I don't usually write lemons, but whatever).

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"I'm going home soon."

"Huh?"

Ichigo turned to see Rukia with her back to him. She was wearing a dress, as always, and seemed to be fiddling with her phone. It had that bunny-eared cover that he bought for her during her first few days back. There was something in her voice that caught his attention, but he couldn't place what it was. Fear, hesitation…? Why would she feel those things?

"I came with work left over," she answered, not bothering to repeat her previous statement, because she knew that she said it loud enough for him to hear. Still, she wouldn't look at him. He frowned. Why didn't she want to look at him? "Lately I'm getting busy…"

"When will you be able to come next time?" he asked. He didn't know how long he could wait until 'next time'. Neither of them even knew if there was going to be a 'next time', every time she left, because no promises about her return could be made.

"I don't know that yet." Her voice was shaky. It worried him. She refused to even turn. Her phone was back in the pocket of her dress. "I can't just come to the world of the living as easily as before." So they won't let her come? Because of him? Because of her attachment to this world?

He could see why she was afraid. Frankly, he was, too. Still, even if they won't let her go to him, he would go to her. Didn't she know that?

"Rukia," he interrupted, standing up now. "Why aren't you looking at me?"

He could see her shoulders jerk upwards, like she didn't expect him to ask that. The clock ticked past a second before she could answer. She looked at him over her shoulder and gave him a smile that seemed to be meant to comfort whatever raging emotions he felt. It just made him worry even more, especially because her eyes did not meet his.

"Ah, today was fun!" she answered in an overly sweet manner that did not fit her. "I've never walked with someone like that before…" She was referring to when they walked in the park, fingers brushing, not really holding hands in the fear that someone might see. It was enjoyable, especially because he bought her strawberry ice cream. Fall was settling in, and the cold draft made her shiver, but she enjoyed it, because it was he who gave it to her… "A-and the –,"

Ichigo went to her so quickly that she was caught by surprise by the sudden hug he gave her from behind.

"Don't go," he told her, burying his face in the crook of her neck. She was tempted to look at him, but her heart was clenching, folding and twisting in her chest. She gave in, and looked behind her. He brushed his thumb on her cheek; the simple action didn't fail to make her blush.

He leaned forward, and she met his lips in a fevered kiss.

They went up for air, and Ichigo tightened his grip on her, as if to keep her there. One hand went to seek out hers, dwarfing it, and still fitting it at the same time.

_It hurts…_ she thought as he began kissing her shoulder, going upwards… "Ichigo…wait…" she murmured, even though her skin heated up at the contact.

_If I look into your eyes any longer…_

She felt hot tears prickle behind her eyes. She was afraid that she was making him unhappy by leaving all the time, and returning only after days…weeks… She was afraid that she was keeping him back from having a normal life, even though 'normal' didn't really suit him. She was afraid of hurting him, over and over again. The guilt ate at her every day.

He told her a book quote* once: "If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane". She wondered if he knew that it should be the other way around.

_I'm going to be swept away_.

In a swift motion, he whirled her around so that she faced him. He held her by her arms and stared into her eyes, with that scowl on his face. "Why are you crying?!" he burst out, looking annoyed and…flustered.

The moment was broken for a second, and out of habit, she exclaimed: "I'm not crying or anything!" She punched his jaw. "You idiot!"

Still, he did not retaliate. He merely held her wrist. She did not know what he was going to do, honestly. "Really, Rukia..." he said, his tone low and husky. He let go of her wrist and pushed her to the bed at the same time, so that she was sprawled on it. She righted herself, and glared at him, but found that his expression was not annoyed or troubled anymore. "I can't wait anymore." He put one knee on her side, and leaned down precariously towards her. "Is it alright if I make love to you?"

She blushed at the question, but found that she couldn't get anything out apart from a strangled cry of his name before he silenced her by kissing her.

_You are cruel_, he thought as Rukia obligingly opened her mouth for him to explore. She gripped the front of his shirt. He wondered if she knew how tempting she was, or how much he didn't want to let her go at all, even though he understood that that was how things were.

She broke the kiss, but only to position the both of them so that they were properly on the bed and not dangling off. Her hands automatically explored the skin underneath his shirt, and he held onto her thighs as they wound themselves around his waist, before tracing light patterns on her skin. He hungrily sought out her lips once again – the taste of strawberries and summer, of sunlight and all the good things in the world, of that feeling they both get when the rain finally lets off. He desperately tried to convey his feelings for her, but could barely keep a restraint on his own body's needs.

Her skin was hot and flushed, and that aroused him even more. One hand left her thighs and crawled up her shirt, finding the mound that so wonderfully fit in the palm of his hand; he fought a smile at the fact that she seemed to expect this to happen because of her lack of underwear. He began kneading it as their mouths separated in their need for air. He quickly pressed light, tempting kisses on her neck, down to her shoulder blades.

"Ichi…go…" Her breath hitched as he took her nipple into his mouth. "S-stop…"

_I will not listen to you, _he thought as he directed his attention to the other one. Her moans only made him fondle her breasts even more vigorously, now using two hands to do so. Her eyes were clenched shut, and he knew that if they opened, they would mirror the lust-filled expression in his own.

He allowed her to hastily take his shirt off before claiming her lips once again. Their tongues danced around each other in fiery passion, and sweat broke out of her brow as she fingered the edge of his pants. Those, along with her dress, were discarded in an instant; she let out a choked cry to show her want – her need – for him. His erection pressed against her thighs as he kissed her with more vigour than either of them thought possible. He felt the fingers of one hand leave his abdomen and intertwine themselves in his hair, while the other hand fondled his bulging member.

He grunted – his manly equivalent of her lustful moan, and traced his tongue down her chest, playfully licking her nipples, before sinking down to her dripping womanhood. The heady smell almost made him hyperventilate in anticipation. He used his fingers to pry the hole open further, and her legs automatically spread as he dipped his tongue in the sweet hole. Its ministrations made her hips buckle, and she gripped his hair with both hands, letting out various lustful sounds as he teased her hot opening with his tongue. It didn't take long for her warm, white liquids to coat his face and his mouth.

_I thought I was being selfish…_

He smiled at her, before kissing her once again, allowing her to taste herself. Did she know how much he wanted her? How much he loved her? How many times he would lay down his life just to save her? She brought her shaky feet up to slide his boxers off of him, and he helped her discard it by kicking it to the floor. His erect manhood pressed against her folds, making her whine into the kiss. His fingers teased her entrance once again; one finger went in, then another, before thrusting in and out. He let his lips explore each soft, skin-covered plain and curve of her body as she panted as vigorously as he stroked her throbbing core, hitting _that_ spot that made her beg for him.

"I…chi…go…" Her voice, her eyes, her scent…he wanted it his, and his only. If he could only lock her up so that no one would be privy to these beautiful things but him…but he wouldn't, because it would make her unhappy.

_But I didn't want to let you go_.

The back of her free hand went to her mouth in an attempt to silence her cries of pleasure as she came in his fingers, her hot liquid coating them, too. He brought them up and licked them, and he wondered if she even had the strength to glare at him as much as she looked like she wanted to.

He grabbed a hold of her legs and bent them upwards, to give him better access.

"Rukia…" he said, his tone dripping with hot, hazy lust as he looked her in the eye, before driving his erect member into her dripping wet folds.

They let out cries of pleasure. She clamped down upon him – gods, she was to _tight_ – and he backed out before ramming into her, again and again, neither of them getting enough of it. Their bodies, slick with sweat, met each other in harmony, their hips bucking toward the other as if a sudden moment of _not_ being in contact could drive them any crazier. Their moans echoed lightly against the walls of his room, and he was glad that no one was there to hear them both…especially since the both of them were making so much noise. But then again, neither of them knew if this was going to be their last…

He clenched his eyes, but a single tear escaped, and landed on her cheek, mingling with the light sheen of sweat. He blinked. "I'm…sorry…" He didn't know what he was sorry for. For crying? For letting her go again, to be put in danger, even if that was part of the job description?

"Ichigo…" She frowned, and with him still inside of her, she pushed him back so that she sat on him…and hugged him. She wrapped her slender arms around his chest. "Ichigo…I love you." His heart soared, at that very instant. He would never get enough of her saying that to him, and he would never tire saying it back. "But…" That made him hesitate. "Real men don't cry! You idiot!"

She began punching his back, and he fought back the urge to pull her off of him. Because the insides of her womanhood was still clamping down at nauseatingly good intervals on his cock, and god, she felt so damn good. "You little…" he said, unable to keep down the redness in his cheeks. He grinned and began nuzzling her neck. "Sweet revenge!"

It made her cringe and convulse, her breasts rubbing against his chest. "Wh—wai—ah –"

It was obvious that neither of them could form any reasonable thought, and they fell back onto the bed. He rammed into her once again, and kissed her for a moment before pulling back. "Damn…" he smiled at her, this time. "I'm so happy right now…"

There were tears brimming at her eyes as she touched his cheek gently. "Me too…"

He held her tightly as he pounded into her, driving them both once again near the edge. He wanted to relish this feeling, of loving her and making her feel how much he did. He wanted to cherish each and every second of it for as long as he lived. He did it harder…harder…

And he felt it, the sweet release of ecstasy. He cried out her name as she did his, and he thought he had gone to heaven right then.

His juices filled her and even spilled out on the sheets; or maybe those were hers – they had no way of knowing.

He panted, and kissed her brow. "I'll give myself to you completely…so give yourself to me completely…"

She was still high from it all. He drove her fears away and made her happy, and she…didn't want it to end. Not yet. Her body was still crying out to him. She wanted him and his essence inside her again and again. She lifted her face to press a kiss to _his_ neck, before nibbling on her earlobe. It made him release a shaky breath. His member quickly hardened inside her once again as she continued to do that, while allowing her fingers to caress his chest, his abs…

_It's scary_, she thought as she ran a tongue up his neck, making him shiver against her, _to be separated by the gap that we call "the way things are"_…

He seemed to finally reach his limit, and drove into her, again and again. She relinquished her lips from his skin, and kissed him lightly.

_So… _

He kissed her back as he pounded into her relentlessly; they came at the same time, and both knew that they had exhausted themselves completely.

_Devour me._

"You don't…hah…have to tell me…to –ah –do that..." she panted into his mouth, before pressing one final kiss to his lower lip. He pulled out of her, dripping from saliva and sweat and cum, and lay beside her, a smile on his face. A smile she knew was only meant for her.

Maybe she could go back to Soul Society a little later…

xxxxxxxxxxx

Yuzu held up her older brother's sheets, and scrunched her face up at the foreign smell that adorned it. "Nii-chan!" she exclaimed disgustedly. It wasn't Ichigo who arrived at the laundry room, however; it was Karin. The smell had already spread all throughout the area, and her twin's look of disgust mirrored her own as soon as she opened the door.

"What…?" Karin's eyes rested on the sheets from which _that smell_ originated from. She almost choked on her own spit as she saw the clear, white-ish liquid still clinging onto it. Oh god…

"Do you know what it is, Karin-chan?"

She blushed madly – something that she never did, until that day – and turned away from Yuzu, her hands clamping over her nose and mouth. "Get rid of it! Get rid of it before –!"

"What are my beautiful daughters doing –_oh!_ Are those Ichigo's?!" Karin grimaced at her father's…Isshin-like reaction. The older man ducked out from the blow that Karin sought to deliver, and buckets of tears were roiling down his cheeks quite comically. She could hear him in the kitchen already, and she knew that he was clinging onto the poster of his late wife that hung there. "Oh, Masaki! Our son has become a man! It won't be long before he gives us many, many, many grandchildren! Maybe ten –no, fifty! FIFTY GRANDCHILDREN, MASAKI!"

She groaned, as Yuzu frowned. Yuzu, in her part, shoved the 'dirty' sheets into the wash and added more detergent than usual.

Come to think of it…she _did_ see her brother covered in sweat in the middle of winter once…

**.**

**.**

**A/N**: The book quote Rukia is talking about is titled Looking for Alaska. It is a wonderful book and I love it. And the ending...well, let's just say that Isshin needed to be here _somewhere. _Haha~ :3


	5. Chapter 5

_Ten Songs for Deathberry_

Song #5: King and Lionheart – Of Monsters and Men

World: BLEACH

Rated: M (for themes)

Summary: In the quiet moments following passion, his thoughts justify everything that is right.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. If I did, I won't be such a goddamn troll like Tite Kubo, the owner of the series. Why I even put up with it is beyond me (actually, no…I just really…like it – SHUT UP, VOICE IN MY HEAD).

A/N: Whoa, I haven't updated this in so damn long! I'm so busy with schoolwork and The Learning Curve and Always Be With Me In Mind and An Introductory Lesson and many other upcoming Ichiruki fics that I almost forgot about this. And whew. I see that this story's follows have gone down. Man. I should really update sooner. As always, writer's block and lack of time is to be solely blamed. Also, I found this little thing sitting in the middle of my 'extra' file (where I keep all random thoughts/lines that I might/might not put in any of my other fics); it's pretty short, but…whatever. Anyway. Whoever's still reading this: I hope you enjoy! And thank you for waiting. J

.

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She has the toughest exterior and softest skin. She has the black hair that shines with…well, something beautiful. Her lips expel gentleness and brashness in one breath. Her eyes are the deepest colour of that shade between blue and violet, and you can see yourself reflected in them, like she already knows the deepest part of you and is just telling you who you really are just by holding your gaze. Her fingers are small and blistered, proof of her life as a warrior. Her heart is encased in a world of ice, yet you can feel it thrumming wildly – heatedly – against your palm, as if that ice has suddenly gone. She can make you feel small, staring you down even though she barely reaches up to your shoulder.

She is a paradox, and you know you won't have her any other way, because that would be just blatant blasphemy. She _can't_ be anything else but a paradox of all the beautiful things in the world, holding everything in balance on her shoulders, and you know that she doesn't even realise it.

There is a realisation, now, as you run a finger on the side of her face; you don't dare touch her cheeks, fanned by her long, dark eyelashes. This revelation comes to you in a sudden rush that you fear you might have missed it, but you have caught it, and you're not letting go. You hold on to the thought like it would be buried in the deepest, darkest recesses of your mind if you don't. It surfaces, and cold sweat breaks out on your still-heated skin.

You wonder if she's going to appreciate it if she wakes up sweatier than normal, but you do not want to leave her side – you'll miss the warmth, you think – so you try to calm yourself, even as you tighten your hold on her slightly. Like she is the thought. Like she is the passing whisper among the crowd calling out your name. You don't want to turn around too late. You don't want to forget, dismiss it as just your imagination, because she is the most real person in the world that you know, and you ever will know.

You press your chapped, rough lips on her forehead. She smells like sex and winter.

You want to look in her eyes now, but you know better than to incur her sleep-deprived wrath. Besides, she's never going to let you live down the fact that you actually want to tell her all the gut-clenching, romantic things going on in your mind, and you'd rather wash your mouth with dishwater and soap before that can happen, even though you really, really _do_ want to tell her. But will she really react like that? You don't know. You never know, not with her. There are a few things you can say, a few things you can do to let her do what _you_ actually want her to do, but those times that she actually falls for it are very, very rare.

Just like her.

And then you wonder, will I settle for this? For the unpredictability and the paradoxes and the crazy things that follow her? Will there be a time when she becomes predictable, when paradoxes lose their thrill, when the crazy becomes the normal and it won't be… 'fun'?

No. You won't settle.

'Settle' means that you are unhappy, somehow, and you're not.

Instead, you tell yourself that you will be a constant. You will not change – at least, you will try not to. And you're sure she won't, either, as long as you don't. And then, even though that time in the future when everything loses its clarity and its vibrancy and its youth, you know that you will still feel the thrill. You will still find your feet carrying you back to her even after a million fights, carrying a million and one apologies for her in a noose of your pride– and you know that she'll do the same for you. You will still want to touch her; even if you lose your sight, you will still want to look through the darkness and see her.

See her light skin, her bright eyes and her dark hair. See that self-righteous smirk that makes you both want to punch her and kiss her – which is fine, you think, because it's part of the craziness that has become the normal – and that gentle smile that makes you think that everything will be fine because, in that one-second smile, the world suddenly stopped being horrible and ugly, because it has seen that smile. You always feel possessive when she does that in public; she doesn't understand that no one else should see the smile that only she gives _you_. The world doesn't need to see it, even though it stops just to look at her; only you need to see it, and you think that's fine, that's great, that is _what is right_.

What is right.

They say that this is wrong. You have heard them more times than you can count, and you have to inhale her scent again just to stop yourself from getting up and finding an unfortunate Hollow to hack into pieces in the sudden irritation at the thought.

What, is it because she's got more years over your head (and continuously lords it over you, like she wants you to turn away)? Is it because she's dead and you're (technically) not? Is it because you're both stubborn and proud? Is it because your lives are always put on the line for each other and for the world?

_What is it?_

You don't see any valid arguments in these. Your only concern is your family, and they have already approved of her _way_ before you started this with her; your father practically treats her like a daughter-in-law already.

So what if she's older than you? She can't even open a goddamn juice box. She even looks younger than you. You both have your own fair share of demons, and that's fine, because she needs your new perspective on old wounds and you need her understanding when you're being childish and naïve.

So what if she's dead? It's not like you can't have sex with her when your soul is out of his body – hell, you could touch her even before you became a shinigami. In fact, that's what you just did; have sex with her, that is, without her in a gigai and you in your actual body. Her scars – the one that she hid from you through her faux body – make you love her even more, no matter what she thinks. Because you have scars of your own, and you don't care that she's sorry for them because she has no right to be; she didn't ask you to save her when she was about to die, the stubborn cow.

Because so what if you and her occasionally get hurt during fights against your enemies? It's what makes you two _fit_. You can watch each other's backs – how perfect is that? They tell you that you might have a possible relationship with Inoue; you don't want to be mean, but you just don't want that. You can't always look over your shoulder to see if the girl you love is stumbling or being attacked. _You have to move forward_, and the woman you chose…well, she is always three steps ahead of you! She _makes_ you move faster, makes you _better_ – not because she heals your physical wounds, but because she beats Being Okay into you so hard that you actually feel better.

So what if you two are both stubborn? How utterly boring would it be to have a woman who always agrees with what you say, and does what you tell her to do? Not like you won't appreciate _her_ if she ever does that – oh, you _will_, you think perversely – but it just won't be very engaging at all. You'd be bored to the death, you know it, and even when you die…

Yes. You will still look for her. Because she'll leave you. You expect this to happen – her leaving for the sake of her duty and her _precious fucking nii-sama's pride_ and for _your_ sake. You can practically hear her telling you this. You can imagine how the conversation will go, and she will stress the fact that you are human and you have to live out your pathetic life until you're reduced to nothing but a whimpering, diaper-wearing prune. And you will allow her to go because you care for her, but you won't do what she asks; why _would_ you, if it doesn't make any sense to live on without _her_? You'll do her a favour, of course, and keep up a farce of you 'living' a human life, but when you die – and you know this for sure – you expect her to be there, telling you that you're an idiot for dying in a hospital bed, looking like a dried-up autumn leaf.

But you will be okay.

You are always okay when she is there.

Being Okay is the one state of mind that you always have whenever you even catch a glimpse of her.

And that is alright for now.

You hold her, reassuring yourself that everything is fine because she is here and real and she won't leave without you waking up to it.

You close your eyes and you do not dream, because you are already holding the dream, small and beautiful in your arms.


	6. Chapter 6

Ten Songs for Deathberry:

Song #6: Une Vie D'Amour

Rating: M (for implied copulation)

World: BLEACH

Summary: Rukia comes back for Ichigo for the last time in the World of the Living. A small interlude after his last moments as a dying man and before he is thrust back into Soul Society.

A/N: Dedicated to Hekka for giving me the prompt. This might seem similar to my stand-alone one-shot, 'The Last', but honestly the inspiration of this piece comes from both Hekka's statement after giving me the prompt and the movie, 500 Days of Summer, which I re-watched for the third time this year. Also, it gives me some form of venting after just having finished watching Les Miserables, which is still giving me the feels. There will be implications of IchiTat, IchiHime (I FEEL LIKE I'M BETRAYING MY ICHIRUKI BRETHREN) and IchiSen (based on the ending of Memories of Nobody).

.

.

She's been at his bedside for half a day, and wondering for the fifth time that day whether she should just knock his soul out of his body and be done with it. He's never really been late, and she does plan to give him hell about that once he is able to see her again –

Just the thought jolts her back into melancholy and nostalgia.

For the past half a century, she's watched him live. Of course, she hasn't watched too closely, but close enough to learn that he's changed even though he promised that he won't. She can't really blame him; he _is_ human, and she's stuck in this stasis where she can't go anywhere else but her job and her family. Unlike her, he'd loved many women. He'd experienced many 'first's, some of which she would have wanted to erase from memory if she could (Urahara is yet to invent a memory modifier that can work on shinigami) – his first kiss, his first intimate touch…his first _time_.

God, she can remember slipping into his window – as invisible as the winter wind – and stalling just enough to see a head of black hair that isn't hers, mussed and long and sticking out in all directions.

She can't help but remember how much she sulked for _weeks_. Everyone kept telling her to stop going to him, but who will keep his ass covered from Hollows, she reasoned. Even Renji had to intervene, stop her from going into a senkaimon after that event, but she only had to look at him and he knew.

He knew how far gone she was.

How, even watching Ichigo with a girl whose face she could not bear to see, she still visited him when she could. How, even as he changed relationships and changed locations, she'd still find him. How she acted like a devoted school girl, how pathetically hopeful she was – is – that his abilities would return and he'd be able to see her again and give her that one last look that didn't really have to mean an ultimate goodbye. How much she wanted him to at least feel _something_ when her hand brushes against his cheek. How much she wanted to 'man up' – as he would put it in a less-than-eloquent manner – and get into a gigai…and ruin his life.

How much she couldn't bring herself to turn his world on its head again.

How much she hated it when he married someone and _tried_ to have kids with that someone – she doesn't know who it was, because she had been sick on their wedding day. How much she wanted to hug him when he found out that his wife couldn't bear children. How much she still loved him even as he lay broken on the floor among bottles of empty alcohol as his marriage dissolved…imploded upon itself and dissipated into the air like a dying star.

And now…how utterly stupid she looks, waiting by his bedside as he dies a lonely old man, bitter and full of resentment. More than once, she might have imagined him whispering her name in his dreams…but her hope is too diminished, only leaving a small spark where there once had been a bright flame.

So, when he wakes up and sees her slumbering lightly on the uncomfortable settee, she jolts forward at the sudden burst of achingly familiar reiatsu.

For a moment, she is disoriented – where she is, how she got there…and how this reiatsu – so hot and warm and comforting – can possibly exist as it bumps and nudges against her own.

She scowls as she sees Ichigo's youthful face – now more refined than it was the last time she'd seen him, and still free of any signs of aging. She scowls even more at the sight of him – all broad shoulders and hard lines and a pure head of vibrant orange hair, no traces of greyness.

"You're late," she snaps at him, jumping lithely off of her spot and brushing away invisible specks of dirt on her uniform. She can't help but gain a certain satisfaction at the way he's struck speechless, his eyes widening at the sight of her shorn hair and shining Lieutenant's badge; he's not the only one who's allowed to change, after all. "You are slow, even as you are dying."

"That's what your brother would say," he tells her, all the while letting his eyes stray from hers and towards his newly-acquired shinigami uniform. He fingers the red strap that binds Zangetsu to his back.

"I've learned a thing or two," she answers, wondering why – for the millionth time in those fifty years – she has managed to give her shattered, barely-mended heart to this orange-haired buffoon. Maybe the way his eyes soften and light up at her, like newly-formed caramel. Maybe the way her reiatsu encompasses hers, melting its coldness and giving way to warmth and the feeling of safety – a feeling that has always been so foreign before she met him.

"Hopefully nothing more than that."

He shoots her a grin, and she _has_ to look away. Maybe then, her heart will calm down and her soul will be grounded from its sudden high. "Whatever. You ready to go?"

"Don't you want to talk first?"

She punches him on the chest, and is not surprised at all by its hard leanness, all muscle, like he hasn't been a vegetable for the past two or so years. "You've gotten soft, Ichigo. Is this what happens when I'm gone?"

His name roils off of her lips like a rare delicacy. His smug grin turns into a smile.

"Maybe that's why I can say I've missed you." And that shocks her. Because the Ichigo she knows would rather face a hundred Menos than say such things. The Ichigo she knows would – "But who would miss a devil midget like you?! I have to bend down and –!"

She doesn't know if she's just happy or if she is just yearning to get back to normality, but when she sends a kick to his shins and a consequent punch to his gut, she _smiles_.

"You've been bending down for other women," she tells him, not being able to control herself. She doesn't really have much of control when it involves him – never had, never will – no matter how much he may believe her 'iron will'. "Somehow, I'm glad that I haven't seen any of them."

He gives her a look of incredulity. "You haven't been visiting?"

The accusation – coupled with his wounded look and voice – doesn't do Rukia's mood any wonders. "No, _baka_, of course I have! Someone's got to cover your ass sometime! Besides…I really didn't want to see their faces…" She closes her eyes for longer than normal, and tries to dampen her emotions long enough for her to give him a haughty smirk. "I mean, anyone ugly enough has to be pretty desperate to want to be with someone like _you_, right?"

He shakes his head. "I would prove you wrong, but –,"

"Tell me who they are," she demands, ignoring the pleas of her heart for her to shut the fuck up. She _knows_ that she shouldn't hear this, but another, bigger part of her wants to. She holds Ichigo's disbelieving stare until he looks away and pats the space on the bed beside him, right at the foot of his body. This should have disconcerted her, if not for the fact that she's lugged that body around too many times to count.

"My first girlfriend was –,"

. . . . . . . . (Spring) . . . . . . . . .

_She was like spring._

_There would be no other way to describe it._

_She thawed out the snow clinging at the edges of my heart, and while I did not welcome it completely, I found it to be a change. Not a refreshing one, and not one that I would totally come to accept, but a change. I needed one so desperately; if it had been winter in my soul for too long, I would have withered into nothingness._

_"Hey, Inoue."_

_"O-oh, hey, Kurosaki-kun! How's your day?"_

_And that simple conversation was all it took._

_I was so desperate for a change of pace, I think, although now I can't really be sure. I just…needed a way to escape the grim reality of everything. I needed something to fill that aching loss, and unlike my mother's death, I knew that somehow, somewhere, the person who I lost would be shouting at me to get myself together. See, I needed to _not think_ about anything – about that time and that place – because that would mean thinking about _you_ and I just can't deal with that without wanting to see you sooner than you would have probably liked._

_I knew that I was using Inoue. I knew that it was wrong – hell, I couldn't even say her first name throughout our short-lived relationship._

_In the end, she was the one that broke it off, saying that she can't stand to be so _useless_ towards me. She said that she can't be you, that she can't do the things you do and make me smile and laugh and be strong as much as I wanted to be._

_She told me that that was your job._

_I wholly agreed with her._

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

She was struck into silence.

Ichigo chuckles and ruffles her hair affectionately. She opens her mouth to say something – tell him off, maybe, or snap at him for weaving such a story that implies that she hadn't been the only one missing him all along. That would be a lie; she's seen how he smiles, how easily he moves as a human, and…how can he possibly miss _her_?

But before she can say anything, Ichigo is already continuing with his story.

. . . . . . . . (Summer) . . . . . . . . .

_It was college when I got in touch with Inoue again._

_That meant getting in touch with our fiery best friend._

_"Yo, Tatsuki, how's it –oof!"_

_"IDIOT! You were supposed to visit last Christmas!"_

_I guess she reminded me of you._

_She puts me in my place and she kicks my ass. She has the same dark hair, and her eyes are as dark as yours can be when you get really mad. She even talks the same way you do. I sometimes imagined her having a lower tone of voice, or having indigo eyes under the right lighting, but none of that would ever work._

_You two are so alike, but you're different in more significant ways._

_Like how she exudes this presence of sweltering heat, and how I feel like I've been burnt every time I'm with her because she is too much like you. Like how she's not short enough, or she's not petite enough, or she's not graceful enough. Like how she's human._

_And, most of all, like how she is so much like summer – hot to the touch, and her life, infinitely shorter; our time, fleeting._

_It had been the heat of that particular summer that prompted us to enter this 'friends with benefits' relationship. Although I really didn't think it would end well – neither did she, really – we still tried it out. I did, because I missed you so damn much that I needed someone to take your place, someone who was close enough to be you. She did because she needed to affirm her sexuality._

_In the end, she was the only one who got what she wanted – a firm grip on who she was – and I was left wanting the ground to swallow me whole, if that would lead me to you._

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

She is blushing now. How can this idiot use those girls like that? And, for reasons that he seems to be implying, only to alleviate any pain that _she_ has caused _him_?

"You were pathetic," she berates.

He sighs in resignation. "I know. I'm sorry. Can you let me finish?"

. . . . . . . . (Autumn) . . . . . . . . .

_I was a doctor when I finally met _her_._

_I'm saying this like I've been waiting for it all my life, when really, that was just what I _thought_._

_After the whole ordeal with Tatsuki – and a _lot_ of sake – I got into terms with the fact that I should probably get over you. I shouldn't have regretted anything, I told myself. I shouldn't have wanted to have you when I know that that wasn't possible, and most likely never will be._

_So I went through college, and got myself a job at a hospital in Tokyo. Things were pretty hectic, of course, but none more so than the moment I met her._

_She looked so achingly familiar, like a phantom limb, and when I saw that familiar red on her – even if it had been trailing down her face in a grim, sticky line – I knew that she was Senna._

_You remember her, don't you?_

_I must be so pathetic, because when I heard her name – she still had the same name – I wanted to…_

_To…_

_Well. I don't know._

_She made me want to let go of a past with you based on a fleeting past experience with her. Trade one regretful, melancholy past for another, I suppose._

_And I did just that._

_Everything else is a blur. We got married. I remember Renji making an appearance in a gigai, telling me that you were sick and couldn't come. I don't know if that's because you just didn't want to, but I felt both relieved that you weren't there to see me and I wasn't there to see you get hurt, and disappointed that you weren't there in the first place._

_She couldn't bear children and she didn't want to adopt, didn't even want to have kids. Things went downhill from there. _

_Arguments. Fights. A lot of walking out._

_Those weren't the arguments that both of us have. No, those were of pure hate and resentment. Bitterness and, soon, betrayal – she had been seeing another man._

_I lived out my life._

_At least, whatever's left of it._

_I still kept dreaming about you._

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

"…And I've never stopped," he admits, looking her straight in the eye as he does so. "You were the last thing I dreamt of when I…died."

It takes a while for her to recover her wits, but when she does, she realizes that she's blushing and she's trying very, very hard not to wrap her bony arms around his strong neck. "…_Baka_."

"So I've been told," he replies with a sheepish, boyish grin that doesn't help with Rukia's now-irregular heartbeats. He leans closer and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ears. She can't look away, not when he's pinning her with that soulful, almost mournful look that she wants to erase from his face. "And…I'm kind-of looking forward to winter."

"Oh?" she questions, almost breathless. "I thought you hated winter?"

He shakes his head. "Idiot. I only hated it because you weren't there with me."

She frowns. "What would make it so different?"

He leans forward even more, so much so that their noses touch and she can pick out the light hazel specks in his molten brown eyes. She can smell his familiar heady scent – gone is the smell of too much cleaning agent that has stuck to the clothes on his corpse – and her eyes almost flutter so _pathetically_ at the delight it brings her. "You make winter like Christmas. Without you, I feel like I've been left outside while everyone else is enjoying mistletoe and presents inside."

That's when she closes the small distance between them.

It had seemed so yawning for the past half a century – she'd been so close, an infinity between them even though they are as close as 0 and 1. In the space of those two numbers are a whole range of smaller numbers that aren't supposed to count but do, and it is that infinity that Rukia has felt between them.

And right now, she is finally counting the last numbers that lead up to her '1'.

_I missed you too, Ichigo._

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A/N (part 2): Okay, that last part was inspired from TFIOS (if you know it, let me share the feels with you. If you don't, I highly suggest that you read it pronto). And did anyone catch on to my little trick there?: "leads up to her '1'" – "leads up to her _ichi_", and by "Ichi", I mean Ichigo. Mwahahaha. Yes, I'm a cheeky little person, sue me. I hope you enjoyed it and, as always, reviews would be appreciated. I'm also quite happy that people are still reading this, so thank you for that as well.


	7. Chapter 7

Song #7: Pieces – Red

World: BLEACH

Rated: T

Summary: After everything, Ichigo views his life in pieces.

Disclaimer: Well, guys, you know the drill. Master C.E owns _nada_, zilch, zip, nuthin', and will never own Bleach.

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When everything is over and done with, all that is left is for him to pick up the pieces.

Go to school. Make sure you survive another year. The simple, silly things are the biggest pieces, and the easiest ones that he can put together. The edges are easy to make out. He knows what to do and when, and something that easy has never come to him so readily in the past few months.

And then there are the smaller ones – medium-sized, he guesses, compared to all the other things. They're a little harder, a little broken apart, but if he pours enough of his time into them, he can put them together, too.

These are the pieces that involve people.

Like how the rougher twin sister can see ghosts but he can't, which opens up a whole world of uncharted territory for both of them, because how can he begin to explain it when he does not want her to know about how he almost died or how their father is actually dead already?

And that's another thing. Isshin Kurosaki is a deceiving man and Ichigo has borne the brunt of such a revelation. He cannot ask; he has promised the same thing that a certain shinigami did all those months ago –a lifetime now, it seems– and he cannot break that vow. Besides, he's not even sure he's ready for it. Maybe one day, when the weight of powerlessness and when the air is dead without the familiar thrum of reiatsu on his skin…

When his friends don't look at him without pity and sympathy so clear in their eyes.

It's obvious, although they try to make it seem like it isn't.

It's in the way Ishida looks at him briefly, and then turns away like he's just seen a dead man (and maybe, Ichigo thinks, maybe I am and I won't know because the line between life and death is nothing to people like us).

And when Chad says less than normal (not that he says much in the first place), especially when he's just excused himself from class like all the rest.

And Keigo and Mizuiro and Tatsuki who refuse to ask about anything even though he knows that they must want to.

And Inoue. Inoue, who just wanted to help in the war. Inoue, who used to heal him and the people who got injured. Inoue – poor, sweet Inoue – caught in the throes of an event that no girl with her disposition should be able to endure without a few deep scars.

Hell, he has a body littered with them.

Swords, mostly, are the cause of everything.

Swords are the cause of most of these…experiences.

(He refuses to think of them as 'past' experiences because that means that _that person_ is well and truly out of his life and he _can't think that way_ or it will absolutely destroy him more than any Hollow's Cero ever will.)

It was a sword that started it – one to his heart, and the only one that he has ever allowed to pierce him willingly. It's poetic, how it starts with a sword and ends in the loss of one.

That sword embedded itself in his soul, lived inside him, until he got one of his own. That sword from that one shinigami on that bloody summer night heavy with fear and trepidation and muscle-numbing anxiety – that sword cutting through bone-white masks for three months before he almost lost it on a rainy night full of broken goodbyes and teary looks over one's shoulder.

His own sword ended it, after all.

(How poetic. How utterly, ironically pathetic.)

And then, after all that, there are the little pieces.

The tiny ones that break off, the ones that you have to sweep the floor with to see, scattered with dust but still glinting under the light surrounded by that pale grey.

Little hurtful stars.

The things that shine in darkness and the pieces that complete the puzzle are the hardest to find, after all.

He is reminded of their existence when he does the most mundane things and it's so _annoying_; how can he hope to put the big pieces together when the smaller ones keep pricking under his skin?

When he takes a shower and he sees his scars and the big one on his chest reminds him of how he lost her once. Of how he lost her again and again in the war, and how he can't keep her even after all that.

Of how she told him, with fire in her eyes and in watery subtext, that she's sorry that this has to happen, even though he saves her just to show her that she shouldn't be.

When he opens the closet and her lingering smell of cherry blossoms and the brand of shampoo that she borrows from their bathroom – it reminds him of what he lost. He can't even get his clothes without wanting to crawl in the small space where she slept just to see if he can get an inkling to what her thoughts might have been, no matter how twisted and nightmarish they tend to be.

(And his are like that now, too, when he dreams of her disappearing into those little hurtful stars in front of him and he cannot grasp her and her _everything_.)

And then there are things that catch him off-guard. The splinters he would accidentally step on and find himself hurting over for days after.

The stack of discarded papers – drafts, he thinks with startling clarity – of crudely drawn rabbits with orange and black hair, of coded messages and of handwriting that speaks years of being taught to write the letters as elegantly as a soldier can.

The worn yellow pyjamas he sees when he tries (_tries_, so very, very hard) to clean any traces of her – and he thinks, _why are you so small and evil, you menacing midget? Can't you see that I'm trying to get rid of you?_

_Stop haunting me already. It's annoying_.

And that one drawing on the pillow in his closet that he found on the first day he opened it after –

It's the first drawing.

It all comes rushing back. Konso. Pluses. Hollows. _Sai_, she said, and his face hit the floor and he came to with a moustache drawn comically on his face.

And that first sword, that first wound.

Sometimes he touches his chest, just to remind himself that it hadn't been some kind of reality he cooked up just because he's actually really insane (sometimes, he believes that he is).

There is the small bump there, almost like someone glued it on, his small, thin line right above his beating heart.

Beating, because if that sword hadn't pierced it, it certainly wouldn't be.

To stab someone is to save them. To cut through a Hollow's mask is to purify them.

(He wants his life to stop being poetic. He justifies that he is a protector and he can never have a life like his sisters would watch on those drama shows where he gets the girl.)

(He doesn't. He loses her many times over and the final time is the one that hurts the most but it's the one that makes him happy because it means that she's not skewered by a filthy hand or lying dead in a hellish place where he can't reach her.)

He tries not to be bitter.

She will laugh at him and kick him and mould him into shape with words and he will absolutely welcome it.

It's just that she's not there to deliver.

So what he does is this:

Every morning, he sits and looks at himself. Then, at the world. He curses everything with his mind and, unconscionably, his eyes would drift to the closet. And then he knows that she's not there, and she will never be (at least, he'll never hear or see or feel her there anymore, which is just as well).

There will be a wave of sadness that he always braces himself for, and he reminds himself of her words. Of the steely determination in her eyes that translate into words that pierce his heart just as her sword did, and then sometimes, he'll be able to understand that all she had been was his anchor. That she'll want him to stand on his own, after everything that's happened – and that's what he'll do.

Every morning, he'll pick up the pieces that he can and wait for the little stars to wink at him from the murky darkness.

As the day ends he'll look at his life and see if he's made any progress.

(He does. He _knows_ he does – how else can he walk and talk and interact like any other human if he hasn't?)

At night he dreams of that final look. That last breath, the last parting of the lips that he can see like she's trying to tell him something definitive.

Like saying goodbye, except the world doesn't want him to hear her say it.

That is because he knows that goodbyes are never for them. He wakes up with this thought every morning, with her voice clear in his mind telling him that she misses him and eagerly waits for that reunion that they never really got in the first place.

(He can hear her telling him that he owes her two, now).

He sits up, blinks the sleepiness from his eyes, and her eyes and her voice are buried in his heart to be dredged up again when he sleeps.

And the cycle starts again.

Rinse and repeat.


	8. Chapter 8

Ten Songs for Deathberry

Song #8: Sweet Dream by MFTBY

Plot: (Part 1/3) Sci-fi AU/ The world is overrun by the Things, hell-bent on destroying humanity. Just as humans are in the middle of a war, Kuchiki Rukia is given the task to save Kurosaki Ichigo from destroying valuable research data and, eventually, a two hundred-year long slumber.

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The overwhelming smell of antiseptic pervades her senses, but the presence of her brother prevents her from denying herself of the unpleasant odour. Antiseptic hasn't been used in a long time, according to their history; it was when humans never knew of how to make everything permanently bacteria-proof some hundred years ago.

"What are you going to show me, Brother?" she asks, eyebrow raised as she walks briskly behind the imposing man. He could have at least given an excuse for pulling her out of the Thirteen Scouts during her shift and into some no-name basement in the middle of the High Cities. Apparently, hanging out at an abandoned hospital is far more important than defending themselves against the Things – twisted, malformed humanoid beings whose main goal is to wipe out humanity.

He stops in front of a metal door, key held out in front of him. It winked at her underneath the flickering lights as it hung loosely from a necklace around her brother's neck. "I have to be sure that you are to be trusted with the information I am about to give you." His grey eyes stall her thoughts in all their intimidating glory, as they always have. "Rukia, are you willing to sacrifice everything for the good of humanity?"

Why is her brother asking her this? The answer must be obvious – she's a lieutenant in the Scouts, which is a feat obtained only by hard work and dedication to the job. In her case, natural talent; she's always had the uncanny ability to make every fight seem like a deadly dance. "Of course, Brother…I don't see why this has to be questioned."

"Even if it means keeping information that can save humanity from your comrades?" he presses. She blinks in confusion. Why must her brother…request her to do such a thing? The survival of humanity depends on the information they manage to get from the Things. Information is liquid gold.

"Yes, brother," she answers after a few seconds. She cannot lie to him, of course, and so she doesn't.

He makes a sound of approval before unlocking the door. "You will step through this door and speak nothing of what you've seen or learnt, is that clear?"

"Yes," she replies, clearly and quickly.

He ushers her in and shuts the door quickly behind them.

The sight of a man on a rusty old bed gives her pause. She walks cautiously towards him, despite the fact that he is bound by chains, covered in them, except for the few areas where wires go under his skin (most likely keeping him alive). A heart monitor beeps desolately beside the bed.

The man himself looks like he has been there for a while. His hair is stunningly orange and long, fanning out on the pillow and even more so after that, brushing the clean white tiles. The muscles under his skin should be impossible. The strength in all his features contradicts the troubled look on his sleeping face.

"What…?"

"This is Test Subject 'Hollow' – or Ichigo Kurosaki, as he used to be called," her brother answers, standing beside her now. "He was admitted to this hospital after he went berserk, soon after the experiments were conducted on him."

She refrains from saying something along the lines of 'that's horrible, but I don't care'. There must be a reason to this; her brother won't drag her out here for no reason. He never does anything for nothing.

He takes her silence as leave to continue. "These experiments were conducted two centuries ago…when the Things first appeared. He was the last to be experimented on and, as it seems, he is the only successful subject. The experiments were supposed to create super soldiers, designed to live forever. As you can see…"

"He's been down for two hundred years?" she blurts out, unable to control herself. This situation is too…improbable. She counted a million other possibilities in her head, but not…a sleeping _super soldier._ Her brother shoots her a look out of the corner of his eye, so she forcefully tells herself to calm down. "So…what is it that I have to do about this?"

He pulls out what seems to be an old-fashioned stopwatch from his coat pocket. "We have recently developed this device that allows a person to travel freely in the time-space continuum."

This time, she can't help herself.

She could have taken in the fact that the scientists have been hiding a super soldier with some form of decorum and grace…but _time travel_.

"Brother…this could change the whole tide of war –!"

"And bring forth a different one," he cuts her off. "Rukia, if knowledge of this _ever_ leaves this room, humanity will self-destruct in the blink of an eye. Humans cannot simply travel through time so freely. It is not something that can be allowed, unless one wishes to destroy all life on earth. This device will do a better job of wiping us out than the Things ever will. Think rationally, and not with the disdain you have for the Things."

She stays silent at his words. There is, indeed, a fine line between hating the Things and killing them because of that rage, and thinking for the good of humanity. Sometimes one fuels the other, but most of the time, the former can only deter the latter.

"Then why should you pick me? I am just a lieutenant – a captain would be suited better to –,"

"You misunderstand. Only the two of us know of this." He frowns – a hiccup on his normally impassive face. "The others experimented on themselves, and a single miscalculation erased their existences from everyone else's memory but mine. They attempted to alter time, and so they were ejected, much like viruses are terminated. This is dangerous, but you are the only one I trust. I have to stay on this timeline to be able to assess the situation further. For now, however, I have calculated that sending you to the past is the most logical thing to do."

He points to the sleeping man. "You must do everything in your power to stop this from happening." He pulls a small vial from his pocket. Seriously, how many things is he hiding from her? "This is the new, improved serum that will counteract the ill effects of the original formula that caused him to destroy most of the past research. Make sure that he stays awake."

"And if I fail?"

"Then humanity falls with you."

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_September 28, 2024_

The sky shifts and turns grey. Ichigo scowls as the cold wind brushes his cheek. How can the day be any worse?

He stops in his tracks as he feels the air turn heavier than what it is supposed to feel like. Normally, rain would be pouring down by now, but there isn't a single drop, like his scowling is scaring it away. He curses internally and looks up.

The curse dies on the tip of his tongue.

Something is falling from the sky – quickly.

He looks at it for a moment, entranced by the black thing flailing in the air.

Suddenly, a scream reaches his ears. It doesn't take him long to realise that the thing that is falling out of the sky is an honest-to-God _person_. A small one, from the looks of it, but that only makes it that much easier to catch her.

Except, when he reaches his arms out and braces himself for the impact – questions can come later on _why_ this person is currently plummeting to his or her death – there is nothing.

There is a silent _whoosh _of air and his hair is blown back by some gust of wind. Someone stands before him – it's a girl, clad in all black and looking straight out of a sci-fi convention or something. There's a stopwatch hanging at her neck, and a realistic gun is strapped to her leather outfit. Is it just him, or are the heel of her bots _glowing_?! Man, is that the trend nowadays?

But maybe the most important question is – why was she falling out of the sky? What, did she forget her parachute?

Just as he's about to berate her (loudly, because is apparently stupid enough to forget her parachute), she cuts him off by instantly pulling a gun on him. It looks strange, all glow-y and whirring like a machine. He's sure guns aren't supposed to do that. There isn't even a safety on it.

"What the hell?" he wonders loudly, the look in the girl's strong, lavender eyes looking dead serious. This…this can't be a real gun…right? It's just a realistic prop, right? "Oi, what the hell?!"

"What year is it?" she snaps, looking tired of him even though he has only asked her what the _hell_ is going on.

He gives her an incredulous look. Is this girl serious? He raises a hand to point the barrel away from him, but she raises her hand and shoots over his shoulder, right beside his head.

He sees a flash of light and hears a high-pitched noise drift right by his ear, before the sound of a lamp post _exploding_ behind him overrides everything.

_What the actual fuck?!_

"What _year is it_?" she presses, pointing the gun at him, its barrel glowing white.

"What the – it's 2024!" he answers. No _way_ is that gun real…right?

"What's your name?"

"Kurosaki Ichigo! … Lady, seriously, what the _fuck_?!"

She lowers the gun and places it in the holster at her thigh yet again. She places both hands on her hips and, in a stunning moment (stunning, in a sense that he did not expect this coming), she smirks at him. Her demeanour changes from hostile-crazy to just _crazy_ but that simple upturn of the corner of her lip.

"I am Lieutenant Kuchiki Rukia, from the New Japanese Republic." He stares at her, open-mouthed, and this somehow makes her grin even wider. "I'm from the future…and I'm here to save humanity by saving _you_."

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**A/N**: aaaand I'm ending it here. I've decided to end this series with a three-part mini-series. I understand that this instalment is not as long as my other entries, but I guess it's better than nothing. It's been months – I've been working on my other fics and I've been really busy with school lately.

Anyway, reviews and comments and stuff are always appreciated.


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